Immediately IMPROVE Your Tennis Doubles With These 3 MOVES At ALL Levels

It's doubles time and this video is a little different than most of my other videos because this is a reaction video if you will. I'm actually responding to a couple of requests that people have given me online in response to another doubles video and I'm very fortunate that I have two great players helping me today. So at the net here's Joy, in the back is Janik. We're talking German every now and then so don't be scared but obviously I'm going to translate that and what we're going to do is we're going to set up certain situations that I do see over and over where players have issues and they're not moving correctly especially after the poach especially when players are getting lobbed and also what do we do when we have established two back how do we then take the net so let's get going. Situation number one is this is by the way my partner sort of but and or also Janik's target once he poaches so the situation is we have me back at the baseline my partner imaginary up at net Janik obviously is up at net he's trying to poach and Joy and I are trying to go cross court. What Joy is trying to do with her ground stroke is to set him up and she manages that by going deep through my half so she's trying to get me off balance and Janik is starting to poach whenever he thinks he can do that and we'll just see how that goes. All right obviously I'm trying to keep the ball away from Janik off balance and he f***ed it up. All right but the ball that he went on was perfect because I was totally off balance. Excellent. For you on the net, the quality of her ball stroke, when you see it, you probably saw it without thinking about it. I fell back because her ball was very good long and I was out of balance and with me it just doesn't look like that, but with me it looks out of balance like this yes so one step back and then of course you went and that is your goal your objective so Janik saw that I was off balance very slightly so my off balance doesn't look like this my off balance looks like this so Joy set him up beautifully. All right I'm not going to let you poach anymore forget it and again nice so my off balance was that I had to pick up a short hop ball. Excellent. One of the biggest things is when players are poaching they tend at lower levels especially they tend to not continue to play and they're kind of like where am I moving so as a rule of thumb when you decide to move keep moving just like you saw Janik passing that midline he kept going and that is Joy's cue obviously when she sees him passing that midline that she switches over because otherwise this happens so what Janik demonstrated here is exactly what happens a whole lot somebody decides to move crosses over and obviously we're lacking a fourth person to continue the point the other player just admires the poach and doesn't move okay so here comes the poach he covers his side absolutely where he needs to be and obviously Joy needs to cover behind him like this there we go now the court is covered again what are his targets when he's poaching all right I'm just going to show you where I think the best target is when we have somebody in the wrong position so Joy was kind enough to be in the wrong position usually when the ball is behind her and I'm under pressure this is where she should be because that takes the middle away a little bit from Janik but when somebody is in the wrong position Janik has the middle wide open on his poach and then there's no need to even go at the person's feet which of course you can always do as well and here is what you don't want to do when you poach when he volleys behind himself his momentum is carrying him over and whether his partner switches or not they're not going to cover that down the line so you always want to poach into the direction that your body moves to anyways how does the net player move when I'm lobbing them so we're playing the point out more or less I'm lobbing and we're going from what not to do to what's better and what is the best solution okay so Janik doesn't seem to be too involved he's also way too close to net so this happens a whole lot and that's perfect that's exactly what happened and the Oscar goes to obviously we would like to have Janik move a little bit more but if you're getting lobbed and the lob is good can't do anything obviously Joy is trying to run that ball down so the next best option is that Janik switches and I want Joy to tell him to do that obviously she has the whole court in view whereas Janik would have to have eyes on the back of his head to see what she's doing so I'm lobbing Janik she's under pressure look where he is not my best volley actually but I also didn't want to kill him when she's covering that lob she's going to be under pressure she's not going to play a very aggressive ball if she then gives me a high ball I get it right to his socks and he's the sitting duck so here's the ideal solution so I'm lobbing again I'm coming in but you had a play so at least he had a play and you saw the difference there he switched not only laterally he also moved back at least to the service line if you have more time move back as far as you can and then split step as I am making contact with the ball so I'm lobbing again look at Janik boom couldn't have gone any better that volley for sure would have been a winner my high volley but since he's moving back as long as the ball is still in the air he's moving he's moving he's moving and he's split stepping to play defense so at least move to the service line if you can move on further back all right let's listen to the switch there you go who makes the decision when to switch there you go Janik sees the entire court from the back obviously he has joy in his vision he has the opponents in his view so he makes the decision whether he wants joy to switch or not and he makes that decision no matter where that ball is especially if joy thinks well okay that's kind of through the middle if he feels that he wants to have her switch he calls switch and she needs to switch whether she wants to or not okay so here's another situation the ball comes a little bit more through the middle does he want her to switch no he does not on this one there we go that's the difference not only because he wants his forehand but it's better geometry the whoever has the ball makes the call is also true for one more situation and that is when you find both players at the back so let's say for instance i successfully lobbed them and they've established two back the other thing that you play two back in is also when somebody for instance has a huge serve so if i were to play against janik the lefty i would ask my partner to move back with me because i'm going to have trouble returning his serve and my net partner would be a sitting duck but ideally of course out of those two back we want to come into the two up position what i don't like is the random okay so we're starting two back and even though it's not my decision now i'm running back in and we have the one up one back again and then better i'm poaching when it was my ball and then he's not moving there and chaos ensues what you should be doing is that whoever again has the ball makes the call so let's see when he chooses to get in i have to follow whether i like it or not so let's play that and obviously i have to be ready every time and split step because i yep now i'm going whether i like it or not there we go oh and i would have switched obviously what you want to avoid obviously is that you are in that one up one back situation which obviously is how we start points but if you look at very old footage nobody stayed in that situation a whole lot people serve and volley people chipped and charged and it was but obviously world class still plays one up one back but they know exactly how to move in the net position here to defend the middle a little better and i still prefer two back over the one up one back because it takes away the middle and even if the player chooses a ball that you think is not the right time to come in it is still super intimidating when two people rush in at you kind of like a wall and that is already half of what you need to win the point quick recap why one up one back is not better than two back obviously if joy manages to go cross court i have to really work hard to poach as will janik with my imaginary partner but if for whatever reason she goes down the line at me here's what happens so if she happens to go down the line there we go i got the middle wide open obviously that was a dramatic reenactment of that but again the middle is the vulnerable spot share this video with your doubles partner so both of you are on the same page and let me know down in the comments which one of these tips is the most valuable for you